Perspective Drawing in Photoshop! Grids and Tips

perspective grids are an invaluable
component of drawing backgrounds for animation and even animation itself is
heavily reliant on having proper perspective yet the entire subject still
remains a mystery to even our most studied viewer guys how to get those
perspective grid on Photoshop mm-hmm great question love that but you see
perspective is a vast subject that couldn’t possibly be covered in one
video on YouTube just kidding it’s gonna take five
seconds this is not a part one but guys the grid is not very useful if you have no idea how to compose a shot place a horizon line design a composition proper
set dressing proper lighting all that without mysteric perspective so let’s do
an episode about the perspective grid and all the other things if you’re new to BAM it goes like this
you guys submit art and we’s guys redraw that art like it was a real
animated show linear perspective is based on horizon lines and vanishing points once you place a horizon line and one or more vanishing points you’re
ready to draw in perspective lots of animated shows that you see on
TV use perspective because it adds a sense of realism by grounding it in a
believable 3d space the perspective we use in drawing is called linear perspective and it’s a system developed by artists during the Renaissance era in
1413 filippo brunelleschi figured out geometrical perspective by painting the
outlines of a building in a mirror and by doing so he discovered something the
parallel lines of buildings if extended would converge to a single point on the
horizon line known as the vanishing point before this discovery vanishing
points were not fully understood artists would attempt to depict 3d surfaces but
had no clear concept of how receding lines should converge now this all
sounds really academic but the truth is basic perspective is actually really
easy once you understand the tools and how to use them effectively click the
shape tool and change it to the polygon tool then edit the properties of the
polygon tool make it a shape with no fill and a one-point stroke then make it
a start with 100 points and indent those points by 99% click the horizon line and
drag the shape you’ll get the star shape thing with a hundred lines that all
converge to a single point this is a one-point perspective grid one-point
perspective is useful for rendering objects that face the viewer it’s
perfect for drawing a simple city street or a simple room in one point
perspective a rectangular surface that’s facing you will be made of horizontal
and vertical lines you can hold shift to draw these but the edges that recede
need to follow the grid knowing this we can fix this cha-cha painting if I
overlay the grid we can see how the perspective of this room could have been
improved oh you think you can improve art history
well Johto maybe yeah he’s early Renaissance dude yeah one point is
simple but there’s a lot to understand about using it effectively
James emailed us his background Bhandari drama aired at gmail.com and it
is a pretty decent execution of one point perspective however the
composition is quite boring and that’s because the horizon line is placed too
high this is a problem I see with most beginner artists this creates kind of a
security camera angle and we see too much of the boring ground he really
disconnects us from the space let’s move this horizon light down which
will allow us to drastically change the composition of this piece now we can add
more background elements like these buildings and make the overall shapes
really dynamic to look at part of perspective as well is understanding
lighting so after my drawing is done I’ll paint some value underneath the
line art if we imagine our light sources coming from here we can paint in a quick
layer of shadows to help make this drawing a read much better I’ll brighten
up the back buildings as well to imply a bit of atmospheric perspective typically
as objects get further away from you they become affected by the atmosphere
and they’ll lose contrast and blend in with the sky here’s a band tip for you
guys humans walk with their arms and legs
offset so make sure the legs are swinging opposite direction of the arms
not vice-versa in two-point perspective if an object is not directly facing you
but still has vertical lines the two services will converge to two points on
the horizon so how do we do this with our grid let’s grab the center of our
star shape with the white arrow tool the white arrow tool grabs individual anchor
points while the black one grabs the entire path take the white arrow tool
and click in between the perspective lines and then drag a selection around
the vanishing point notice the anchor points are now selected then click and
drag to move the vanishing point off to the side somewhere if you want to stay
on the horizon line hold shift before you drag go ahead and make a duplicate
of this grid and drag the other point way to the left now we have a two-point
perspective grid going the key to to point is again understanding where to
place the vanishing points putting them very close together will create a wide
angle lens effect which heavily distorts your drawing and putting them far apart
will create an isometric effect both of these are correct but you need to choose
the right position for your scene Photoshop allows us to place our
vanishing points wherever you want even very far off the campus which is
something that’s like much more annoying to do in real life hey here’s another
drawing by James BAM that redrawn my art a Gmail calm very cool but the horizon
is too high again and the vanishing points are not well defined
yeah let’s fix this by lowering the horizon line a bit and drawing more
background details to help establish the scene
let’s had some said dressing like weeds cans and newspapers like real stuff that
would be around a dumpster details like these will really help tell the story
let’s push the line of action more in this character and make the silhouettes
more clear here’s the submission by Zack this one is great but it’s in dire need
of said dressing there’s almost no details to tell us about the space
typically restaurants are loaded with all kinds of junk that really make the
space feel lived in to make the character feel more impressive to these
viewers let’s place them up high now this perspective might look confusing
but it’s actually a variation on the two-point instead of placing our second
point off to the right let’s place it somewhere up here to emphasize they were
looking up at these shapes in our scene and then we can tilt the camera as well
by making a grid of parallel lines and then rotating them slightly
that’s called a Dutch angle take time to set dress your scenes properly objects
can be placed in a scene to create interesting compositions just arranging
objects evenly spaced like this is not very appealing
unless you’re drawing an Apple store this layout is boring instead group the
objects together to create miniature compositions that are visually more
interesting I’m gonna increase the size of these characters and make them
foreground elements this will help frame our hero making the composition more
dynamic Vinnie’s drawing is great because the angle is very intentional
we’re a tall person looking down on this rabbit so a high horizon line is perfect
I’ll use a three-point grid for this one one for each surface direction a 3-point
grid will yield the most dynamic drawings and we can use that grid to
match our character that way they will match the background so sorry guys even
if you are a character designer there are gonna be times when we have to draw
in perspective not all perspective is linear sometimes
an animation we may want to warped grid to mimic a fisheye lens this will allow
us to cram in more background information in Photoshop there are ways
to tackle vanishing points like these the simplest type of lens distortion is
called a banana pan and it’s an approximation of a panoramic photo for
something like this you can stitch together two more vanishing points by
simply rasterizing and distorting your grid a more advanced version of this
would be called spherical perspective this is where all of the vanishing
points are made of spheres or parabolas let’s take a look at this piece by
Brandon now this is one of the best examples of perspective that has been
submitted on the show great job BAM done we’ve done our digibook album but I
would like to take this even further notice the rows in the buildings are
starting to curve back inwards towards the vanishing points the artist is
implying some warping but I think we can enhance this let’s add a spherical grid
use the ellipse tool and make a single ellipse then duplicate it then change
the width slightly and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat this is how I
accrued the grid for our gas station background however in this drawing I’ll
duplicate this grid and rotate it 90 degrees so there are four vanishing
points and then of course one point going down I’m going to vary these types
of buildings and their heights this will be more interesting than a bunch of
buildings that are all the same real cities have variation notice the
distortion happening is stronger near the edges if I wanted to I could keep
extending this background further until we reveal the horizon line then we can
make it drawing like this you need to also add realistic infrastructure like
water towers and air conditioners these details help make the scene feel more
believable so take the time to draw them I had some quick lighting in the scene
to show the light is hitting the top of these buildings and some gradients to
emphasize the depth of this road in 3d art this effect is referred to as
ambient occlusion this is when the light can’t penetrate the deep cracks of a
surface you
so now that you’ve got this arsenal of grids up your sleeve how do you use them
effectively the best way to utilize grids is to apply them midway through
your sketching process first roughly draw what you want in the scene
establish the composition and where you want the horizon line just by eyeballing
it to find the large shapes in your composition and whatever small details
that you think are important then decide which type of grid to use and then match
that grid to your sketch then fix your drawing with proper perspective while
maintaining the composition that you originally wanted obviously you could
start out by just drawing with the grid but that’s kind of distracting and will
most likely yield to some fairly stiff results because the grid is like kind of
distracting but that’s just like my opinion man you can use Photoshop cheats
to help you draw certain shapes for instance ellipses can be placed on the
grid and then warped into place using the free transform tool using a
combination of control shift and alt you can transform the points to align things
to the grid you can also draw flat surfaces and then skewed them into
perspective which is very useful for like windows and arches you can easily
draw a staircase by figuring out the end points then drawing flat steps and
skewing them into place then just duplicate these parts move them over and
scale them you can scale objects in perspective by moving the rotation point
to the vanishing point hold alt and shift and then transform this is very
helpful if you need to move things further away from you or scale them in
perspective to make simple lighting identify a light source and use the
polygon lasso tool to block out the surfaces which will be in shadow then
add cast shadows by identifying the shape casting the shadow and how that
would interact with the topology of the object being affected by the shadow you
can add simple gradients by selecting an area with the polygon lasso and then
painting with a large brush with very soft edges as objects go away from you
shift their shading to make them have less contrast less details and blend in
with the background more doing that will establish atmospheric perspective so by combining composition perspective
set dressing lighting and atmospheric perspective you will be able to achieve
convincing drawings for your animation or illustration hey you me are you tired of wasting
thousands of dollars in art school well now you don’t have to introducing the
band animation YouTube channel you can gain a knowledge of skills from
professional designers working in the animation industry for free all you have
to do is subscribe just get a Wacom tablet a copy of Photoshop and you were
ready to learn so what if I want max and bridge to redraw my artwork just send it
to BAM don’t read Romero to gmail.com and they’ll make an episode all about
you dear brennan max attaches my drawing at my OC Val cameras she’s 16 old goth
wizard of Hogwarts study the art of demon transformation she’s the smartest
person in her class and sexiest with no weaknesses is it that she’s a half-demon
and has two different codes eyes and seven very important tattoos and
bracelets and even though she’s not a demon she’s also asexual and a POC and
an amputee please animate her in your next video great when’s the next episode
whoa kind of like tayo with my class right
now I’m almost I’m teaching a class as well and I’m working that’s a lot about
you’re working – yeah I mean not next week No nah that’s true not after that
either not so I guess maybe in between episodes
you should just practice drawing happy Anniversary Brent oh hey dude
we’ve been doing Bamm for one year yeah and you guys have left a lot of positive
comments and we’ve learned from listening to you as to what you wanted
to get from these videos it’s really important to us to keep education free
you guys can all do this we really liked making videos for you and thanks for
watching and being supportive yeah thank you mmm
you

Look, Ive been using ps for a while now /several years/imgrowinold and I didnt know several things that you talked about, or had never seen it so easily explained. And it was so quick. You guys are really great! Thanks for bringing us the info for free.I love the hair btw.

I wish one thing in life is to be a animator but I never knew the things about that so is there a video about being a animator or would you be nice to make one of course I’m glad I found this cause I was having a hard time knowing what perspective is but I’m using MediBang not photoshop

Holy fuck, just some 13 mins taught me something, a top design school never taught in a span of fucking 2 years, tbh I feel sad after watching this video cz…I WASTED 2 YEARS of MONEY AND TIME for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

ps: these lessons are not only informative and creative but fun too, aaannnd life savers!

This is the most helpful art channel I have ever been on. You guys manage to make it entertaining and informative, teaching new techniques and ideas that accompany the core element of the video, making it really instructive. Keep up the good work!

I have been drawing for over 30 years, using perspective for at least 25. I took classes in Secondary school (British High School), as well as American College and University, and I STILL learned some tips and tricks from this video. This could be the BEST, most concise video on the subject I have ever seen!

Hello! Amazing videos! I have a question: What's the process for compositing characters on the backgrounds and keeping them in perspective during animation? Or… asked another way…. How you keep the characters and objects in the right proportions relative to each other when they're moving on the backgrounds?

Omg I tried learning this kind of stuff in year 12 high school art class. I found some pretty vague stuff and ended up figuring a decent skeleton of understanding enough to pass and be somewhat satisfied with my art and porfolio at the end of the year, but I wasn't that happy either. I didn't feel like I could ask my help from the teacher and being the only real digital drawing art student. This tutorial blew my mind and filled in a lot of the pieces I've been looking for. Now I have a bigger perspective to look from when it comes to art.

Im using Photoshop cc 2019 and when I use the direct selection tool to move my 2 point grid, it moves only the lines I selected, almost like they are their own shape so to speak. Is there a way around this?

hi, great video! i wasn't waiting for such great quality when i began the video, you channel totally deserve more subscribers!

I have a question, on Adobe Photoshop I just can't find a "Ruler" tool, you either use "Shift" to have a Horizontal/Vertical Line , or you use "Line tool" (or "Pen Tool") and for the first one you can't draw other things than Horizontal or Vertical lines, and for the second you have no control on the pressure of the pen.and I wanted to know if you have any tips for that or maybe a tool on adobe photoshop that i missed, or maybe a plug-in?Thank you.

11:17 OH dude I just subscribed though too bad that I don't have no money for a Wacom tablet though I have everything else [imsosad] thanks for this BTW it might help me even just for sketching perspectives thanks!

11:17 OH dude I just subscribed though too bad that I don't have no money for a Wacom tablet though I have everything else [imsosad] thanks for this BTW it might help me even just for sketching perspectives thanks!

Dropping GEMS. I have taken so many perspective classes in my life. None have ever told WHY to use certain techniques and what effect the choices might have on my composition. Best and most concise perspective lesson ever.

youtube is kinda unthanklful.. great editing, great ideas, great useful tips, real actual talent (unlike your typical view-reaping trash-content-producing youbue-"TALENT" that only got famous cause luck and/or cause attractive).. why doesnt this channel not have a million subs yet after almost 2 years??

Oh my gosh, as someone who was going broke paying for Skillshare and PluralSight and art books with Amazon every week, this is like a LITERAL God send. Like, God came down from the heavens and pointed at this video from over my shoulder and said "Behold, proof of my love" with a resounding thunderclap from above.

I'm going to watch this over and over and over again and try dozens of backgrounds! I have Photoshop for photo-editing and both Clip Studio Paint and Paint Tool Sai for drawing, but I'm going to try my hand at drawing in Photoshop…Or more likely, try to make these grids in CSP XD I haven't figured out how to get my wacom pen to work well with Photoshop yet.

Thank you so much for sharing such critical knowledge with us lowly, poor artistic souls! You truly show us that…